


cool kids

by orphan_account



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:39:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4334204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>RE-TITLED: IS IT THE SAME FOR YOU /// messed up boys having a messed up time being sad and not loving each other. (this is a one-shot, but i plan on adding continuation pieces/timestamps—can be read as a standalone)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> same story, just re-titled [[song inspiration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrdpliMfoAM)]

Taekwoon rolls off the couch with all the grace of a stumbling drunk though he's not drunk anymore, and he stands beside the window where Hongbin's smoking a cigarette with the filter torn off. He asks, 'Where are the curtains,' and rubs his left eye.  
  
'Threw them out,' Hongbin tells him.  
  
'Why'd you do that?'  
  
'You tried to burn them last night.'  
  
'Burn them? I tried to burn them?' Taekwoon keeps rubbing his eye and Hongbin wants to ask if there's something wrong with it, did he burn that too? but he settles for nodding instead and keeps smoking his cigarette. Taekwoon takes it from him a moment later, finishes it. 'I don't think you got that right,' he says and walks to the back of the house, to the bathroom; and the shower turns on a second later and Hongbin leaves through the front door.  
  
-  
  
He's sweating though it isn't hot, and he can't feel his face though it isn't cold; and he wonders if this is what dying feels like. The soles of his shoes are worn and he can feel the gravel beneath them, and the fresh cigarette he's lit tastes like shit so he throws it in the street; a car runs over it a second later, and he thinks: I didn't really want to throw that out, but it's too late now.  
  
He ends up at Wonsik's: duplex apartment with a winding staircase and a maid that wears too much perfume. She lets Hongbin in without looking at him and leads him to the kitchen, leaves him there to go to the living room where the television is playing something in French and Hongbin stands there with all his weight leaned on his right foot, thinks about leaving but Wonsik comes from the back room with a towel around his neck and his hair wet and he looks like someone who's just walked out of a movie, so Hongbin stays.  
  
They share a joint, thinly rolled; and Hongbin's been doing this so often now that he doesn't even cough anymore, but there's a tickle in his throat like maybe he wants to, maybe he's gonna cry, so he swallows it down and leans his head in the crook of Wonsik's neck. He says, 'Taekwoon hyung's losing it.'  
  
And Wonsik laughs, but it's more of a scoff. 'He's been losing it for a while.'  
  
'Maybe we should find Jaehwan.'  
  
'I think that's your worst idea ever.'  
  
'Maybe we should get him high.'  
  
'Wait—' Wonsik takes another hit, puts the filter between Hongbin's parted mouth. ' _That's_  actually the worst idea.' He pauses for a while. 'Just let him be.'  
  
'He tried to burn the curtains,' Hongbin says and the memory, still fresh, rolls in waves through his head: Taekwoon standing by the window, swaying on his feet with his lighter ignited and an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He'd bent down like he was tying his shoes, and when Hongbin asked,  _hyung, what are you doing_ , there was a loud, ugly crackle and alarm flooded into Hongbin's mouth like bile and he'd barely been able to stomp out the flames before they engulfed all of the curtains and the window too.  
  
'He almost burned down the house,' Hongbin says. 'He doesn't remember doing it. I think he's really losing it,' and he pauses here to think it over, and says: 'No. He really  _is_  losing it.'  
  
'Just let him be,' Wonsik says again and takes the joint from Hongbin's fingers.  
  
-  
  
Hongbin goes back home with a false smile stretching his mouth and air in his head; he stumbles through the doorway like he's never really learned how to walk, and Taekwoon's standing in the bare window, touching the wall like he's looking for traces of his own mess. He looks at Hongbin, looks him over; he says, 'I wanna go out tonight.'  
  
'It's the thirteenth,' Hongbin says.  
  
'So.'  
  
'It's Friday,' Hongbin says.  
  
'So.'  
  
'It's Friday the thirteenth.' But this doesn't register at all, so Hongbin nods and toes off his shoes. He falls on the couch and lets his arm settle over his face, and he tells Taekwoon, 'We'll go out, but you can't burn anything tonight. Don't do that again,' and Taekwoon's crouched by the couch and he's touching Hongbin's arm, making the tiny hair there stand on end, and it feels good just to be touched at all.  
  
'Sorry about that,' he says in a way that sounds hollow. How can he be sorry when he doesn't remember? 'I won't do it again.'  
  
'You said you hated purple,' Hongbin says. 'That's why you did it, but the curtains were blue.'  
  
Taekwoon doesn't say anything.  
  
-  
  
It's Hakyeon's party: overcrowded kitchen and a miniature strobe light on the living room table, it washes the walls in a rainbow of colors, lights so bright it's dizzying. Hongbin barely makes it through the room before his knees buckle, and he falls into a chair at the dining table; and looking to his right he finds Wonsik, hair styled and freshly dyed a bright blue that suits him far better than the blond ever did.  
  
'You look good,' Hongbin says but Wonsik doesn't hear him; gets up from the chair and leaves Hongbin there. He hadn't even noticed him. Sitting with his hands on the table and an ache in his head, he watches the strobe of colors flash over the windows and the television screen and he thinks he's gonna puke.  
  
So: into the kitchen, never mind the crowd, to shoulder past bodies too hot to be around. He finds Hakyeon by the sink, washing a cup; and for some reason this makes Hongbin laugh: Hakyeon, cleaning dishes at his own house party. He sees Hongbin laughing, lifts an eyebrow in question, but laughs along anyway even though Hongbin never explains.  
  
'Where's hyung?' Hongbin asks.  
  
Hakyeon shrugs slowly, cocks his head to the left and pushes his ear closer to Hongbin's mouth. 'What?' he calls over the music, but Hongbin's sure the answer won't change even if he asks again so he says, 'Nothing, never mind—' and walks to the hallway, to the stairs; and up he goes, one foot after the other, feeling weak and light-headed and not drunk at all. And he's standing at the top of the stairs, looking down a hall with rooms on either side of it. He wonders how can one house have so many rooms, then thinks of Wonsik's duplex apartment and his maid who watches French soap operas and thinks better: how come his apartment doesn't have so many rooms?  
  
Most of the doors are open and he can look inside and there's nothing in them but vacant dark and weird shadows cast by the moon that's bloated and strange in the sky, he can see it through one of the windows. It looks like something from a horror film then he remembers it's Friday the thirteenth and he thinks he should have stayed home tonight, nothing good can happen with a moon this ugly in the sky.  
  
Then: standing by the only closed door, ear pressed to it; adolescent curiosity, he tries to knob and it turns and he pushes the door open and there: on the bed in a sleeveless shirt and a beanie covering most of his hair is Taekwoon, and he's sitting next to Sanghyuk who's staring at his hands with his whole body curled in like he's trying to be small, but he isn't small at all.  
  
'Sorry—' and they wouldn't have noticed him if he hadn't spoken up, but maybe that's why he did it. Trying to close the door, but Taekwoon's already to his feet and Sanghyuk's shifting around on the bed like he's been caught doing something he shouldn't be, and he looks as young as he is: fragile in a way that Hongbin thinks is almost endearing, if it wasn't Taekwoon he was with.  
  
His breath smells strongly of alcohol and his words are all messed up, but Hongbin understands them just fine. 'What are you doing wandering around up here?'  
  
Hongbin looks at his feet, looks at his hands; he looks at Taekwoon's mouth and blinks slowly. 'I— I don't know? I was just— I was looking for you.'  
  
'You found me.'  
  
'Lucky m—' Taekwoon's mouth presses against his own, heavy hand holding the back of Hongbin's neck between fingers that press against his skin too hard. The tendons in his neck start to ache and he's being pulled so hard into Taekwoon's body that his back arches, his head tilts back; and he can't breathe, but he kisses back as well as he can with his tongue in Taekwoon's mouth, tasting all the liquor he's already drank.  
  
'Go find something to do,' Taekwoon says and closes the door in his face.  
  
There's beer pong in the living room; someone's turned off the strobe light, and Hakyeon's mixing something in a pitcher. He offers a glass to Hongbin but Hongbin refuses, he can smell the liquor from the doorway and it makes his mouth water like he's going to puke; so he takes a beer instead, and chugs it. Takes another one, and chugs that too; then feels worse than he had before, and tries to find Wonsik. He finds Jaehwan instead.  
  
It's like walking in a dream: leaning in a doorway and thinking about smoking a cigarette, then there's Jaehwan touching his wrist and his hands are cold and his hair is darker than it was the last time Hongbin saw him—the last time anyone saw him at all.  
  
'Where have you been?' is the first thing Hongbin asks. Then: 'Why are you here?'  
  
Jaehwan smiles with his mouth, not his eyes, and he says, 'Missed you too, Hongbin. Is Taekwoon here?'  
  
'He's upstairs fucking someone, but if you stick around a little longer I'm sure he'll be down.' He doesn't say it to hurt Jaehwan's feelings, but he doesn't want Jaehwan around Taekwoon. He thinks of the curtains, and the melted rubber of his shoe soles; he thinks how scared he'd been stamping out a fire that was determined to burn everything down. 'Want me to get him? I can get him.'  
  
Jaehwan's face doesn't fall, not really, but there's a look Hongbin can't really decipher somewhere lost in his eyes; and he's shaking his head, hand falling away from Hongbin's wrist like maybe he hadn't really known he was touching him at all. 'Let him know I stopped by.'  
  
'Are you back from London, then? You staying for a while?' but Jaehwan's already leaving, pushing through bodies that won't part for anyone, and Hongbin feels a little guilty, but at least he's not thinking about the curtains anymore, or the way Taekwoon had looked at him; how there had been nothing in his eyes, not even recognition.  
  
And sometime later—an hour? maybe two—Hongbin's downing a drink Hakyeon's made him, liquor or not he's so drunk he doesn't care anymore; and he's crawling up the stairs again, trying to open the door again, but it's locked this time. So he leans his forehead to the door frame and calls Taekwoon's name, but no one answers; and he tries to hear through the door but there isn't any sound, or maybe he's just too drunk to hear properly. Then: warm fingers on his neck, forceful hold; someone's pushing him against a wall and they're kissing his neck, biting his jaw; and he'd be scared if the hands up his shirt weren't so familiar.  
  
He tries to push Wonsik away, hands on a chest both firm and soft, and he doesn't mean to cant his hips up; to be hard in his pants. He wants to tell Wonsik  _not tonight, not tonight, I don't feel good tonight_ , but the pressure of Wonsik's hand between his legs is a homecoming he hasn't felt in a long time—maybe months, he can't remember anymore. And he's grinding against the pressure, breathing hard into Wonsik's mouth; sweat on his neck and his heart throbbing behind a rib cage so frail.  
  
'Let's go to the room,' Wonsik says, and here's his outing.  
  
Hongbin shakes his head, pulls Wonsik's hand out of his pants. He says, 'I'm not drunk enough for that,' and it's a blatant lie that Wonsik sees clearly through, but he's drunk too so he lets it go, but not before nuzzling his face into Hongbin's chest, biting him hard through the cotton of his shirt, and it hurts, brings water to Hongbin's eyes, but he doesn't blame Wonsik. It isn't his fault everything hurts all the time.  
  
He'd fall down the stairs if it wasn't for the guardrail; holding hard with both his hands, he slips on the last step and lands on his feet. He thinks maybe tonight isn't all bad.  
  
And outside, sitting on the curb with music blaring from every direction, Hongbin lights a cigarette, leans his head against his knees. The ground is hot beneath him, large beetles crawling from grass to sidewalk, from sidewalk to street; and he wonders: where are they going? can he tag along too?  
  
He doesn't notice Taekwoon's footsteps, the drag of shoes on concrete; but he feels his weight beside him, the sharp edge of his shoulder biting into Hongbin's own. He takes the cigarette from Hongbin's mouth, inhales deeply; the cherry burns like a sky on fire; like the curtains, like Hongbin's heart.  
  
'Did you fuck him?' Hongbin asks when Taekwoon gives him the cigarette back.  
  
'Yeah.'  
  
'Was he good?'  
  
'Good?' He's tapping his shoes to the beat of the song, leans back on his hands and blows smoke at the sky. 'Good compared to what?'  
  
'I don't know. In general?'  
  
'Sure. He was good.'  
  
Hongbin wonders if he should tell Taekwoon about Jaehwan, then wonders if he'd handle it well at all. He thinks Taekwoon will find him soon enough; he can pass it off as being too wasted, too forgetful—but wouldn't that only make him look bad? He doesn't really care.  
  
'I think we should move,' he says after some time. The song changes and the volume goes up; someone screams inside, but neither of them jump.  
  
'Move where.'  
  
'Anywhere? but here.'  
  
'Alright.'  
  
'Tonight?'  
  
'You wanna move tonight?' and he's laughing, hand on Hongbin's leg. 'Let's save up first.'  
  
'I don't think we should be here.'  
  
'The party?'  
  
'Yeah,' Hongbin lies. 'The party.'  
  
'Let's go home then.'  
  
His heart speeds up, chills on his arms. He wonders where his cigarette went. 'I wanna lie down when we get home.' Taekwoon says okay. 'I want you to lie down with me.' Taekwoon says he will. 'I want you to fuck me.'  
  
Here: a sigh, soft and sad and everything Hongbin doesn't want to hear. 'You know I can't do that.'  
  
'Why?' Emotion building up in his throat, he forces it down and pulls at Taekwoon's shirt. He comes easily, forehead leaned to Hongbin's own. He's weightless and limp like a body without a life in it; and isn't that what he is?  
  
'Because,' Taekwoon says and Hongbin's afraid that's the only answer he'll get. But then Taekwoon's kissing him, gently, timidly, like he's afraid to do it. It's nothing like the kiss in the hallway, or the kiss from the night before; all the times Taekwoon pushed his mouth against Hongbin's own like he'd drown if he didn't get what little air was left in Hongbin's lungs.  
  
'Because,' he says again, 'I love you.'  
  
It isn't enough, but it's all he'll ever have; so Hongbin accepts it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk how many installments there will be ;; maybe 4 or 5!

 

 

Hongbin's in the bathroom of Renegade and he's closing the front of his jeans when he looks up, looks at the wall, and finds there, written in dirty faded marker:  **taekwoon gives good head** . For one sickly moment he can't do anything but stare. Then he remembers his jeans aren't zipped and there's a banging on the door and someone shouting for him to get the fuck out; so he leaves through the entrance and shoulders past the waiting line that curves around the corner, and tries to find Wonsik but the club's too crowded. The music too loud. He leaves instead: with a cigarette in his mouth and his hand in his hair. He leaves: with his face burning hot and his body aching; and he has to wonder—because he doesn't know for sure— _ does _ Taekwoon give good head? and it pains him in some way that he doesn't understand that it seems he's the only person who doesn't really know this.

 

-

 

Taekwoon's at the gas station when Hongbin's in the bathroom. He's shoving the nozzle into his gas tank when he looks over his shoulder and stops breathing.

 

Jaehwan's by the entrance and he's wearing a track jacket a size too big; and he looks small, frail, with the cloth hanging from his shoulders. He sees Taekwoon in the same instant that Taekwoon sees him. It's all hazy from there. Jaehwan: walking across the parking lot. He has something in his hand; it looks like a fountain soda, but Taekwoon isn't sure, because Taekwoon doesn't really care. There's a red hickey behind Jaehwan's left ear and no matter how hard he tries to look away, look at his feet, Taekwoon's eyes keep lingering, lingering, until Jaehwan's standing in front of him and he's chewing the straw in his cup; full mouth, white teeth. His hair's grown too long.

 

'How long have you been back?' Taekwoon asks.

 

'A while,' Jaehwan says.

 

'Why didn't you tell me?' Taekwoon asks.

 

'I told Hongbin.'

 

It isn't anger that swells in Taekwoon's stomach, not even irritation, but something else completely that he doesn't really recognize. He looks at his hands, then at his car; he shoves a hand into his pocket and feels his cigarette there. He wants one—badly, but knows he can't have one. Not here. So he fingers the pack instead and stares at an oil spot by Jaehwan's right foot.

 

'Maybe,' Taekwoon touches his face, brings his hands together. He takes the nozzle from the gas tank. 'Maybe he forgot,' but he doesn't believe this; and Jaehwan's watching him closely like maybe he doesn't believe it either, but that's okay. It doesn't really matter.

 

'What's that?' Taekwoon says, and he points to Jaehwan's ear. 'It looks like a bruise.'

 

He touches the spot Taekwoon points to, winces; it must still be tender. He blushes bright pink before dropping his face to the pavement. 'I have a boyfriend,' he says quietly.

 

'What happened to us getting back together?' Taekwoon asks.

 

'I don't know,' Jaehwan whispers quietly, the quietest Taekwoon's ever heard his voice go.

 

'You told me to wait. Remember that?' He opens his door, puts one foot inside. 'You said:  _ hyung, wait for me _ , and I've— I've been waiting.'

 

Jaehwan grabs his hand and tells him that he missed him—he really did; and he's sorry, maybe they could grab lunch. Or dinner. Or breakfast. Anything Taekwoon wants, but Taekwoon can't stop staring at the red mark on Jaehwan's neck, and his chest feels heavy over his heart like maybe his ribs will collapse and crush it; and he wonders—vaguely, without really thinking—what Hongbin's doing right now.

 

He's in his car and he's pulling out of the parking lot, and Jaehwan's watching him go; and he almost looks sad, but not entirely so; and in this moment: Taekwoon's heart breaks for the second time, for the same person.

 

-

 

Wonsik calls twenty minutes after Hongbin's left Renegade, and he's pissed off that he's been left behind without any notice, and he asks Hongbin where he is.

 

'I'm outside Pastels,' Hongbin says, and he's looking at the unlit cigarette in his hand, unsure if he wants it, but he doesn't have a pack. He bummed it off some guy in a suit two blocks back after he smoked his last one on the curb outside Renegade, and he can't put the cigarette in his pocket or it'll break; so he puts it behind his ear, but feels like an asshole, so puts it in his mouth, unlit, and feels even worse.

 

'Pastels?' Wonsik asks. His voice is loud, but the club is louder; and Hongbin can barely hear him. 'What are you doing at Pastels?'

 

'I'm... standing here.'

 

'Well, are you having any  _ fun _ standing there?' and it's now Hongbin realizes how angry Wonsik is, and maybe he shouldn't have left, but the black marker writing is stuck in his head; and he thinks about Taekwoon again.

 

'I'll come back,' Hongbin says quietly. 'If you want me to come back, I'll come back.'

 

Wonsik doesn't reply to this, but instead yells something to someone on his side of the line. Then back on the phone and he sounds less annoyed, like maybe he's scored some good coke or something.

 

'Did Taekwoon call you?' he asks.

 

'—what?' Hongbin, teetering on his tiptoes. He isn't aware that standing here with his hair dirty and in his face and his shoulders slumped is causing people to look at him. Pastels is for rich men with rich company; for people who drive BMW's and wear suits all the time; things Hongbin has never once thought about. Looking around, he notices there's too many people around him, looking at him, so he moves down the street and sits at a bus stop. The bus stops for him to get on, but he ignores the driver.

 

'What did you say?' he asks Wonsik for the third time, and finally— _ finally— _ Wonsik replies.

 

'Taekwoon. He called me. Did he call you?'

 

'No. I don't know. I don't think so' Then: fretting. He lights the cigarette. 'What did he say?'

 

'He ran into Jaehwan—I don't know, man. He didn't say a lot. He just... he ran into Jaehwan and I think that's—that's enough to worry, right? Are you worried? He said he called you.'

 

'He didn't call me.'

 

'Well,' pause. 'Maybe you should call  _ him _ .'

 

Hongbin asks when Taekwoon called and Wonsik says something like twenty minutes ago; and Hongbin: nothing smoking the cigarette but rather watching it burn, thinks he shouldn't have ever left Renegade.

 

'I'll go home,' he tells Wonsik. 'See if he's there.'

 

'Do you think he will be?'

 

'No,' Hongbin says after a minute. 'I doubt it—' and he thinks of Hakyeon's party some weeks before: Jaehwan touching his wrist, how cold his fingers had been, how low his voice was and he thinks of Jaehwan telling Taekwoon he'd already talk to him, told him to tell Taekwoon that he was back; and something like guilt—but more like anxiety—crawls up Hongbin's throat and sits heavily on his tongue.

 

'I doubt it,' he says again. 'But, Wonsik—' no answer. ' _ Wonsik— _ '

 

' _ What _ ?'

 

'If you see him?'

 

'I'll send him home.'

 

Hongbin leaves the cigarette in the gutter and ignores the second bus that urges him on, and he's watching the changing street lamps: red to green and green to yellow, and his heart sinks down into his stomach and explodes.

 

-

 

Taekwoon ends up at Sanghyuk's doorstep, but he can't ring the doorbell because Sanghyuk still lives at home. He has to sneak Taekwoon through the back door, through the kitchen, up the stairs, and finally into his room.

 

'Are you okay?' he asks and he sounds a little timid, looks a little timid too with his hands in his hap and his knees together. He crosses his ankles, uncrosses them; he turns on the radio and it's playing something old from the 90's and Taekwoon stares at the radio for a long time before answering.

 

'I'm fine,' he says, but his mouth doesn't move and he isn't sure if he's spoken at all. He looks at Sanghyuk who's looking at him, then looking at the ground, and Sanghyuk's pulling at the hem of his shirt and he asks Taekwoon if he wants to fuck him.

 

The thought crossed his mind when he was in the car, when he was driving. As Sanghyuk pulled him up the stairs and told him to be quiet, he thought about it: Sanghyuk on his knees with his head between his shoulders, all the bones in his body stark beneath his skin; and even now: Taekwoon's thinking about it, but he shakes his head and sits on the floor and he leans his head back so it touches the wall. He says, 'I don't wanna fuck you, Hyuk-ah.'

 

The song changes to something new and Sanghyuk's humming along to it as he slips on a long t-shirt and a pair of shorts that reach the middle of his thighs; and Taekwoon's not trying to look, but ends up looking anyway. He sighs silently, heavily, because Sanghyuk's handsome and his body is nice, and he's a good kid who won't ask for much, but Taekwoon's too busy wondering why Hongbin hadn't said anything about Jaehwan—and the truth is: he doesn't have to think very hard to understand the  _ why _ . But it hurts—a lot—that Hongbin would keep anything from him.

 

And with a sudden intensity Taekwoon remembers the curtains. He remembers how Hongbin hadn't touched him the day after, had told him not to do it again. He remembers Hongbin warily watching him the next night when they got home from Hakyeon's party, when he thought Taekwoon was drunk though he wasn't; and lying on the couch with Hongbin in his arms, he remembers the flutter of Hongbin's heart like delicate bird's wings, beating hard, beating loud; and he remembers Hongbin crying but not knowing why, and Hongbin's hands on his face and his shoulders and his chest and—

 

Taekwoon's off the floor and across the room and he has his arms wrapped around Sanghyuk's middle with his chin on Sanghyuk's shoulder. He asks, very quietly: 'Did you  _ want _ me to fuck you?'

 

They fall into bed a moment later.

 

-

 

Hongbin waits at home, waits on the patio; he smokes four cigarettes from a pack Taekwoon keeps in the bathroom cabinet. He'd tried watching a movie—something called  _ The Artist— _ as soon as he got home, and he had thought: he could really like this movie if he cared enough to pay attention. So he sits on the patio with his eyes on the front door, on the browning lawn; fallen wisteria on the staircases, the sidewalks. He touches his face and it feels numb, touches his hair and then doesn't know what to do with his hands anymore.

 

He called Taekwoon three times and there wasn't an answer except for the third time, but nobody had spoken to him. There was only the crackle of static like bad reception, really weird, really unsettling; so Hongbin hasn't called again, is afraid to.

 

He slumps forward in his seat, then slumps back inside; he's lying on the couch with his eyes on the ceiling and not paying attention to the movie that's still playing on the big screen, because for some reason he's thinking about high school. Detention: at least twice a week; and homework never finished. He thinks of the drama club and how badly he wanted to play the lead role, but couldn't get past casting because he was too shy, too quiet; and he thinks—with his eyes growing wet and his throat sore—of Taekwoon in the fields, kicking a soccer ball between his feet and passing it to Hongbin who was never any good at the game, but never left out either because Taekwoon had been the boy everyone wanted to know, and the boy that only Hongbin could reach.

 

He thinks about this for only a second, if he thinks any longer he might cry. So: sitting up on the couch, still staring at the ceiling, he lights a cigarette and puts it in the ashtray.

 

-

 

'I went to Renegade,' Sanghyuk tells Taekwoon when they're lying in bed. The sheets are damp and Taekwoon's hair is mussed; he has an arm over Sanghyuk's middle, but there isn't any weight to it. It's simply his arm draped over Sanghyuk's body, not even  _ trying _ to hold him.

 

'Yeah?' Taekwoon mutters.

 

'Yeah. Have you been there lately?'

 

'Not in a while.'

 

'How long is a while?'

 

'I don't know—' he rubs his face— 'a couple months. A  _ while _ . Maybe a year.'

 

'We should go,' Sanghyuk says. 'I think it's nice there.'

 

Taekwoon shifts uncomfortably on the bed, thinks of all the times he'd been to renegade before, and already: he feels gross. So he crawls from the bed and steps into his shorts. He feels like a jerk: leaving so soon, but the sky is light and the sun will be up and he'd like to be home before the birds start chirping.

 

'Will I see you soon?' Sanghyuk asks before Taekwoon leaves.

 

He has his hand on the doorknob and his weight on his toes. He doesn't speak above a whisper when he says, 'Maybe. I don't know.' Then: he's gone, down the stairs with his shoes in his hand, and he hears the creak of the floorboards as Sanghyuk follows him; and they're at the back door when Sanghyuk tries to kiss him, but it doesn't feel right anymore, so Taekwoon touches his face instead and tells him: 'Maybe you should give Hakyeon a call sometime.'

 

-

 

Hongbin's asleep on the couch when Taekwoon gets home. He has his arms pillowed under his head and his body at an angle like maybe he was trying to stand up but decided not to; and lingering in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, Taekwoon smiles. It doesn't last long.

 

Crouched on the floor and touching Hongbin's cheek, Taekwoon leans in and presses his mouth to Hongbin's ear; and it's there, on his tongue: all the questions he wants to ask, like: why didn't he tell Taekwoon that Jaehwan was back; why would he hide something so important; why does he stick around when he's so unhappy? He's hovering there with all his pent up aggression falling away and his eyes clouding over, realizing that none of it matters.

 

He pushes Hongbin's hair out of his eyes and leans in, kisses his mouth. It's slack and small and it tastes like liquor, but Taekwoon kisses him again; and he thinks about waking Hongbin up, but instead cradles him in his arms, carries bridal style to the bedroom where the lights are off and the air is cold. He works Hongbin, half asleep but more alert now, out of his clothes and into his sweatpants, a t-shirt; Taekwoon curls up behind him in bed and holds him to his chest, and when Hongbin, slurred, asks: 'Are you mad?'

 

Taekwoon tells him no.

 


End file.
